A [1]_Chancellor_, and a very Learned Lord, was the _First_ who honoured
the _Chair_; and a no less Honorable and Learned _Chancellor_, resigns
it to Your Lordship: So as after all the Difficulties and Hardships
the _Society_ has hitherto gone through; it has thro' the Favour and
Protection of its _Presidents_, not only preserv'd its Reputation from
the Malevolence of Enemies and Detracters, but gone on _Culminating_,
and now _Triumphantly_ in Your Lordship: Under whose propitious
Influence, I am perswaded, it may promise it self _That_, which indeed
has hitherto been wanting, to justifie the Glorious _Title_ it bears of
a ROYAL SOCIETY. The _Emancipating_ it from some Remaining and
Discouraging Circumstances, which it as yet labours under; among which,
that of a _Precarious_ and unsteady Abode, is not the least.
This _Honor_ was reserv'd for Your Lordship; and an _Honor_, permit
me to call it, not at all unworthy the Owning of the Greatest Person
living: Namely, the Establishing and Promoting _Real Knowledge_; and
(next to what is _Divine_) truly so called; as far, at least, as Humane
Nature extends towards the Knowledge of Nature, by enlarging her Empire
beyond the Land of _Spectres, Forms, Intentional Species, Vacuum, Occult
Qualities_, and other _Inadequate Notions_; which, by their Obstreperous
and Noisy Disputes, affrighting, and (till of late) deterring Men from
adventuring on further Discoveries, confin'd them in a lazy
Acquiescence, and to be fed with _Fantasms_ and fruitless Speculations,
which signifie nothing to the _specifick_ Nature of Things, solid and
useful knowledge; by the _Investigation of Causes, Principles, Energies,
Powers_, and _Effects_ of _Bodies_, and _Things Visible_; and to improve
them for the Good and Benefit of Mankind.
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